René Descartes to père Marin Mersenne and Thomas Hobbes, Monday, 4 March 1641 [hobbthOU0010094a2c]

2000 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
René Descartes

Spinoza, Platonism and Naturalism

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL AYERS
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Hierarchical System ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
The Universe

This chapter examines the strands of Platonism and naturalism in philosopher Baruch Spinoza’s metaphysics. It argues that Spinoza’s hierarchical system of substance, attribute, immediate and mediate infinite modes, and finite modes matches in some surprising respects Neoplatonist accounts of the emanation of the universe from God. It suggests that Spinoza’s perception of universal and necessary principles are more related to that of Thomas Hobbes than to Plato or Rene Descartes.

Richard Baxter as Philosophical Theologian

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Sytsma
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Mechanical Philosophy ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Pierre Gassendi ◽  
The Way

This chapter argues for Baxter’s importance as a theologian engaged with philosophy. Although Baxter is largely known today as a practical theologian, he also excelled in knowledge of the scholastics and was known in the seventeenth century also for his scholastic theology. He followed philosophical trends closely, was connected with many people involved in mechanical philosophy, and responded directly to the ideas of René Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, Thomas Hobbes, and Benedict de Spinoza. As a leading Puritan and nonconformist, his views are especially relevant to the question of the relation of the Puritan tradition to the beginnings of modern science and philosophy. The chapter introduces the way in which “mechanical philosophy” will be used, and concludes with a brief synopsis of the argument of the book.

The Body of Light in Renaissance England

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-62
Author(s):  
Simon Cox
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The Body ◽  
Subtle Body ◽  
Mechanical Philosophy ◽  
Renaissance England ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Body Concept ◽  
New Form ◽  
Cambridge Platonists

This chapter engages with the first Anglophone attestations of the term “subtle body.” It appears first in the contentious correspondence between Thomas Hobbes and Rene Descartes between whom there was some disagreement over who plagiarized the idea from whom. Most of the chapter is taken up with the Cambridge Platonists who came in their wake, who formulated complex philosophical and mythological views of the Neoplatonic vehicles of the soul, now under the English name “subtle body.” It ends with Lady Anne Conway, who fuses the Platonism of the Cambridge group with Kabbalah to create a new form of spiritual monism. This chapter is significantly about how the subtle body concept was employed by Renaissance Platonists arguing against the reductive materialism of Cartesian mechanical philosophy.

scholarly journals Spinoza on Free Speech

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-206
Author(s):  
Seppo Sajama
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Baruch Spinoza ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Important Milestone

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was arguably the fi rst modern liberalist. His Theologico-Political Treatise (henceforward, “TPT”, followed by chapter number), which contains among other things a principled defense of free speech, was published anonymously in 1677, twelve years before John Locke’s charter of liberalism, Two Treatises on Government (1689), but it has been unduly, although understandably, neglected. It is also true that Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes had a huge infl uence on Spinoza, but neither of them can be called a liberalist, let alone a defender of free speech. In this article, I will try to show that Spinoza’s argument for free speech is, despite its interpretative diffi  culties, an important milestone in the development of the doctrine of free speech.

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